Posted
by
samzenpus
on Friday November 16, 2012 @05:22AM
from the what-about-gold? dept.

angry tapir writes "WordPress has said it will accept payment in bitcoins, opening up the blogging platform to payments from users in countries not supported by PayPal or credit card companies. WordPress is free, open-source software, but the company Automattic offers paid-for features such as blog designs, custom domains, hosting partnerships and anti-spam measures."

They're using BitPay. Assuming BitPay's charges are reasonable, it seems like a bit of a no-brainer.

Wordpress makes some simple API calls to BitPay. If someone pays in BitCoin, BitPay converts it to dollars, takes a processing fee, and adds it to Wordpress's balance. Wordpress can treat it as dollars from that point on, so tricky tax/accounting issues.

On that basis, why would you *not* accept BitCoin, if you think there are customers keen to spend them?

BitPay has to deal with tax/accounting/legality issues, but that's their business.

If you go to Room 77 in Berlin you can buy burgers and beer with Bitcoins. You pay with your mobile phone. I've done it, it's easy. The guy who runs Room 77 is a huge Bitcoin fan and recently announced that 4 more shops in Berlin are now accepting Bitcoins too.

Is HSBC present in the countries you're operating? If you set up an HSBC Premier account in any of the countries it operates, you're automatically eligible to open HSBC Premier accounts in any of the countries it operates - without paying any fees. Then you can use GlobalView to log in in all the accounts at the same time and shift money without paying any fees.

That some may profit at the expense of others doesn't make anything into a Ponzi. But don't take my word for it, here's what the European Central Bank's analysts have to say on why Bitcoin isn't a Ponzi scheme:

"On the one hand, the Bitcoin scheme is a decentralised system where – at least in theory – there
is no central organiser that can undermine the system and disappear with its funds. Bitcoin users
buy and sell the currency among themselves without any kind of intermediation and therefore, it
seems that nobody benefits from the system, apart from those who benefit from the exchange rate
evolution (just as in any other currency trade) or those who are hard-working “miners” and are
therefore rewarded for their contribution to the security and confidence in the system as a whole."

"Moreover, the scheme does not promise high returns to anybody. Although some Bitcoin users may
try to profit from exchange rate fluctuations, Bitcoins are not intended to be an investment vehicle,
just a medium of exchange. On the contrary, Gavin Andresen, Lead Developer of the Bitcoin
virtual currency project, does not hesitate to say that “Bitcoin is an experiment. Treat it like you
would treat a promising internet start-up company: maybe it will change the world, but realise that
investing your money or time in new ideas is always risky”. In addition, Bitcoin supporters claim
that it is an open-source system whose code is available to any interested party."

Can you lose your shirt if you invest heavily in Bitcoin? Yes. Can you get scammed by other users? Yes. Is the whole thing a Ponzi scheme? No.

RTFA. They want to sell to customers in countries where banks/paypal/etc. don't serve.

But WordPress wrote on its blog that PayPal doesn't serve more than 60 countries, and credit card companies have restrictions due to political, fraud and other reasons.

"Whatever the reason, we don't think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can't control," WordPress said. "Our goal is to enable people, not block them."

here is one link that took me 3 seconds to google. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/fbi-fears-bitcoin/ [wired.com]
it doesn't take an einstein to understand that criminals would rush to using unregulated and uncontrolled methods of payment/money etc.
despite the fact that i'm moderated as troll, it's all of you who really are.

Ok, I see you don't know the first thing about Bitcoin, too bad.
Bitcoins can't be mined more than what has been defined on day one, no matter how many CPUs, GPUSs, FPAs, and (soon) ASICs you put at work.
Nobody can do a heck about inflation in Bitcoin, no matter how large his resources. The (matematical) rules can be changed only id the majority of the network agrees to a new set.
And guess what? Bitcoin is succesful *because* of that rules.
Government money will always be scarce for someone (the majority of the people) and will always be printed at will by some other (a minimum minority).
Bragging about criminal activities using Bitcoin is exactly the same as bragging about free speech. He who does not understand the importance of the latter can't understand the importance of the former.

Sites and people handling bitcoins have had their compters hacked - exactly the same thing that would happen if banks had the same low lever of security as these victims (and indeed, this has happened to banks as well). If someone breaks into a physical bank, or steals your wallet, would you call paper money "hacked"? This analogy is apt, btw, because bitcoin behaves a lot like paper money in many ways, and if you store your paper money where someone can nick it, it's bound to happen sooner or later.

The actual currency bitcoin has so far not been hacked. So, just like you don't ask any guy on the street to keep your money and keep it safe, you should only store your bitcoins with someone you actually trust - or have good security on your own (equivalent to having good locks on your home).